544 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



to liave been left for non-Christians almost alone in a professedly 

 Christian community to take the advance in inculcating and dis- 

 seminating one of the central ideas of the Christian religion; as 

 now, in the United States, with the orthodox church people almost 

 unanimous in supporting war and the wildest schemes of aggression, 

 it has been left for a few Xew England Unitarians first to dare to 

 speak in protest against an iniquitous and perilous crusade for foreign 

 dominion. ]\Ir. Spencer has never neglected an opportunity to ex- 

 press in unmistakable terms his aversion to militancy, and has been at 

 gTcat pains to demonstrate, as in his Sociology, that the true road to all 

 higher development of society is through encouraging the growth of 

 its industrial factors. 



A disposition manifested among English legislators to favor the 

 passage of acts embodying some of the ideas of the socialists led to 

 the publication of a series of magazine articles showing the demoraliz- 

 ing tendencies of measures of paternalism and foreshadowing the 

 disastrous ultimate results that would ensue from the unnecessary 

 interference of the state. These were afterward collected and pub- 

 lished under the title of The Man versus the State, and are now 

 bound up with the revised Social Statics. 



Erom the spring of 1886 till 1889, when conditions of health 

 compelled entire suspension of the work on the Philosophy, and it 

 was even doubtful whether it could ever be continued, Mr. Spencer 

 dictated the larger part of his autobiography. This has since been 

 completed and put in print, but will not be published during his life- 

 time. It will comprise two considerable volumes. 



ISTot finding life in a boarding house in all respects suited to his 

 wishes, Mr. Spencer for many years entertained the idea of estab- 

 lishing himself in a home of his own in the suburbs of London, but 

 had been deterred from so doing by the prospective troubles of 

 housekeeping. In the summer of 1889, however, after making such 

 arrangements as promised to relieve him in great measure of these 

 cares, he finally carried out the idea by taking a house in the neigh- 

 borhood of Regent's Park. But though for some years the bache- 

 lor household was a success, we understand it eventually ceased to 

 be so, though it was continued until Mr. Spencer changed his resi- 

 dence to Brighton two years ago. There was wanting in those who 

 had immediate charge of details that feeling of identity of interests 

 and that disposition to co-operate which belong to the ordinary fam- 

 ily, and as a consequence differences grew up that could not be per- 

 manently composed, and that on the whole did not conduce to do- 

 mestic tranquillity. 



About the time his housekeeping experience was entered upon, 

 Mr. Spencer found himself well enough to go on Avith the com- 



